On Media

Twitter sued for $50 million over racist, anti-Semitic tweet data

Twitter has been hit with a $50 million lawsuit over claims it failed to comply with a French court order to reveal details about users who posted racist and anti-Semitic messages on the site.

The lawsuit stems from legal action taken by France’s Union of Jewish Students and other groups over tweets connected with a hashtag, #unbonjuif (#agoodjew), which they argued violated France’s anti-racism laws. In January, a French court ruled that the U.S.-based social-networking site must hand over data to help identify the users “within the framework of its French site.”

Twitter on Thursday filed its appeal against the January ruling, a company spokesperson said.

UEJF president Jonathan Hayoun told the AFP this week that the group was taking further legal action because “Twitter is playing the indifference card and does not respect the ruling. They have resolved to protect the anonymity of the authors of these tweets and have made themselves accomplices to racists and anti-Semites.” The damages sought — 38.5 million euros, or $50 million — would go to the Shoah Memorial Fund, UEJF said.

Twitter, meanwhile, said the filing shows the UEJF is “sadly more interested in grandstanding than taking the proper international legal path for this data.”

"We've been in continual discussions with UEJF,” Twitter spokesperson Jim Prosser said in a statement. “As this new filing shows, they are sadly more interested in grandstanding than taking the proper international legal path for this data. We filed our appeal yesterday, and would have filed it sooner if not for UEJF's intentional delay in processing the court's decision."

Twitter removed a number of the postings in October, but has also repeatedly said it will not monitor its users or content.